Czech Housing for All initiative: We won't allow families to be split up
The Housing for All initiative has issued the following press release, which news server Romea.cz is publishing in full translation:
A briefing for those living in the residential hotel at Čelakovského 4 and for the initiative will take place today at 19:00 CET in front of the building. Dozens of activists have come to the residential hotel in the Krásné Březno quarter of Ústí nad Labem.
"We refuse to allow these families to be evicted when they have nowhere to go. They are at risk of being split apart and that would seriously, permanently harm their children," said activist Lenka Novotná.
The CPI company announced it would close the residential hotel as of 19:00 CET today. "They want us to leave, but we don’t have anywhere to go" said Iveta Jaslová, a tenant at the residential hotel who was displaced there last fall from the Předlice quarter.
Through their presence, the activists intend to support the families with children at the residential hotel and are joining the families’ request that the town of Ústí nad Labem ensure adequate housing for them. "We are not expecting a violent clearance of the building once the deadline established by CPI expires," said Lenka Novotná.
"An occupant’s freedom of domicile is protected by law even in the case of residential hotels. Any effort to remove the occupants through force would constitute the crime of violating their freedom of domicile per Section 178 of the Criminal Code," said lawyer Robert Pelikán, whom the initiative has been consulting regarding the situation.
"We have learned that the CPI firm is insisting on eviction and the families are refusing to move. We want to contribute toward a solution that will not mean a further deterioration of this situation. We call upon all the responsible actors to take immediate action," said activist Novotná.
The CPI firm owns more than 2 000 apartments in Ústí nad Labem alone, and more than 30 000 throughout the Czech Republic, according to its own data. Occupants of the residential hotel are paying as much as CZK 16 000 a month to live there.
The activists sent a letter to the Ústí nad Labem town hall today as well. "These are citizens of Ústí who have found themselves, through no fault of their own, in a crisis situation and are suffering because the landlords have failed them. The town bears clear responsibility at this moment for their fate. The solutions proposed to date by the town and by some NGOs would mean a deterioration of this situation – broken families and their relocation into conditions that would prevent the adequate raising of their children (such as burned walls, apartments being leased by dubious owners, etc)," the activists’ letter reads.
